Day 22 of Lent :: Unstoppable

“They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”
(Revelation 12:11)

Many of us have never been ridiculed for our faith.  Some of us have been called holy-rollers or have been looked at as old-fashioned or have experienced the rolling of eyes by a co-worker.  This is a far cry from being abused and persecuted for the cause of Christ.  Many people enjoy the freedom of personal prayer in open places and enjoy public gatherings for the purpose of worship, but this is not the case in numerous places in the world.  In fact, an average of 171,000 Christians worldwide are martyred for their faith each year.1  For countless Christ-followers, taking up their cross means being disowned by family members, being discriminated for employment, and/or suffering violence.

From the beginning, the followers of Christ have suffered.  Around 34 A.D., one year after the crucifixion of Jesus, a young disciple named Stephen was stoned to death.  Martyrdom for Christ was prevalent in Jerusalem during this period.  Over the next several decades, all but one of the twelve Apostles were martyred for their faith. 

Here is what history records:
James the brother of John was killed with a sword during a persecution initiated by King Herod. (44 AD)
Andrew was hanged on the branch of an olive tree. (circa 70 AD)
Doubting Thomas was thrust through with pine spears, tortured with red-hot plates, and burned alive. (Circa 70 AD)
Philip went to Phrygia where he was tortured and crucified. (54 AD)
Matthew was beheaded. (Sometime after 60 AD)
Bartholomew was flayed (skin stripped from his body) for refusing to deny Jesus.  When that did not kill him, he was crucified. (70 AD)
James the lesser was taken to the top of the Temple, and refusing to deny Jesus, he was thrown from the roof.  He survived the fall, so a mob beat him with clubs until he died. (63 AD)
Simon the Zealot was crucified by orders of the governor of Syria. (74 AD)
Judas Thaddeus ministered in Mesopotamia where he was beaten to death with sticks. (72 AD)
Matthias, who replaced Judas Iscariot, went to Ethiopia and was stoned to death while hanging on a cross. (70 AD)
Peter (according to Eusebius, a third-century historian) thought himself unworthy to die in the manner in which Jesus was crucified, so he requested that he be crucified upside-down.  (Circa 67 AD)
John the beloved is the only disciple who died a natural death, but that does not mean he was exempt from persecution.  According to historian, Tertullian, John was plunged into boiling oil in a Roman coliseum, yet suffered no effects from it.  He was then banished to the Isle of Patmos, where he wrote the Book of the Revelation, and died an old man. (Circa 100 AD)

Persecution did not slow the growth of the Church during the first few centuries after Christ died.  As its early leaders suffered horrible deaths, Christianity flourished throughout the Roman Empire.  It is estimated that 70 million people have been martyred because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

Prayer: Spend time throughout the day praying for our brothers and sisters around the globe who are suffering as a result of their faith in Jesus Christ. 

 The following are a few things to pray for them:

To have physical protection and deliverance
To speak the right words to fearlessly make Christ known
To know God’s grace as sufficient and God’s power is perfected in their weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
To love Christ’s appearing
To rejoice in sharing the sufferings of Jesus
To faithfully endure by more completely trusting in God
To choose ill-treatment and the reproach for Christ’s sake, rather than the pleasures of sin
To overcome sin
To love Christ far more than life itself
To love their enemies
To not enter into temptation, even under the stress of      persecution
To rejoice that they are considered worthy to suffer for His Name
To demonstrate the joy of the Lord before their persecutors
To focus on their future glory
To rejoice that they bear in their bodies the “brand marks of Christ.”

Action: To learn more about the persecution of Christians around the globe visit: www.persecution.com, www.persecution.net, and www.idop.org. 

1 Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (2006).

Day 15 of Lent :: Helping the Helpless

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
(Psalm 34:18)

Today, may our attention be drawn to some of those in the world who could use a voice speaking on their behalf.  May our awareness first turn us to prayer, and then, perhaps, to action.  There are many in the world who need a voice. Let us consider one large population that often goes unnoticed.

According to the United Nations, twenty-seven million individuals are held as slaves throughout the world.  Of those who are trafficked across international borders, it is estimated that seventy-percent of them are women and young girls who are being sold into prostitution.  One million of these are children who are brutally exploited by the global sex trade.  This is not a new reality.  According[i] to the organization, Unite for Children (UNICEF), these numbers have been consistent for the past thirty years.  This means that two children have been sold, raped, and resold, every minute of every day for the past thirty years.  Thirty million children lost to the villainy of injustice is no small number to ignore, nor is the thirty-two billion dollars accumulated annually from human trafficking.

"If we respect the image of God in other persons,” writes Ron Sider, “we must give them what is their due.”[ii] If we are truly "ambassadors" for God, then the Gospel should, in some way, compel us toward prayer and action. (2 Corinthians 5:14-21)

Prayer: The realties of injustice in the world are astounding, and God’s heart breaks for such atrocities.  Christ died to bring healing to the broken, and the Church has a responsibility to extend this healing to the world.  Spend time praying for those who have no voice raised in their defense.

Learn more: Visit the website of International Justice Mission (www.ijm.org) to learn more about what is happening in the world and what others are doing to become voices for justice.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:

to look after orphans and widows in their distress

and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
~James 1:27

---

[i] www.unicef.org

[ii] Ronald Sider, Justice, Human rights, and Government, 164

Let it Rain...

A friend of mine sent me the following meditation by John Piper. It's a profound reflection on something as common and often mundane as rain...

But as for me, I would seek God, And I would place my cause before God; Who does great and unsearchable things, Wonders without number. He gives rain on the earth, And sends water on the fields.

-Job 5:8-10

If you said to someone: "My God does great and unsearchable things; He does wonders without number," and they responded, "Really? Like what?" would you say, "Rain"?

When I read these verses recently I felt like I did when I heard the lyrics to a Sonny and Cher song in 1969: "I'd live for you. I'd die for you. I'd even climb the mountain high for you." Even? I would die for you. I would even climb a high mountain for you? The song was good for a joke. Or a good illustration of bad poetry. Not much else.

But Job is not joking. "God does great and unsearchable things, wonders without number." He gives rain on the earth." In Job's mind, rain really is one of the great, unsearchable wonders that God does. So when I read this a few weeks ago, I resolved not to treat it as meaningless pop musical lyrics. I decided to have a conversation with myself (= meditation).

Is rain a great and unsearchable wonder wrought by God? Picture yourself as a farmer in the Near East, far from any lake or stream. A few wells keep the family and animals supplied with water. But if the crops are to grow and the family is to be fed from month to month, water has to come on the fields from another source. From where?

Well, the sky. The sky? Water will come out of the clear blue sky? Well, not exactly. Water will have to be carried in the sky from the Mediterranean Sea, over several hundred miles and then be poured out from the sky onto the fields. Carried? How much does it weigh? Well, if one inch of rain falls on one square mile of farmland during the night, that would be 27,878,400 cubic feet of water, which is 206,300,160 gallons, which is 1,650,501,280 pounds of water.

That's heavy. So how does it get up in the sky and stay up there if it's so heavy? Well, it gets up there by evaporation. Really? That's a nice word. What's it mean? It means that the water sort of stops being water for a while so it can go up and not down. I see. Then how does it get down? Well, condensation happens. What's that? The water starts becoming water again by gathering around little dust particles between .00001 and .0001 centimeters wide. That's small.

What about the salt? Salt? Yes, the Mediterranean Sea is salt water. That would kill the crops. What about the salt? Well, the salt has to be taken out. Oh. So the sky picks up a billion pounds of water from the sea and takes out the salt and then carries it for three hundred miles and then dumps it on the farm?

Well it doesn't dump it. If it dumped a billion pounds of water on the farm, the wheat would be crushed. So the sky dribbles the billion pounds water down in little drops. And they have to be big enough to fall for one mile or so without evaporating, and small enough to keep from crushing the wheat stalks.

How do all these microscopic specks of water that weigh a billion pounds get heavy enough to fall (if that's the way to ask the question)? Well, it's called coalescence. What's that? It means the specks of water start bumping into each other and join up and get bigger. And when they are big enough, they fall. Just like that? Well, not exactly, because they would just bounce off each other instead of joining up, if there were no electric field present. What? Never mind. Take my word for it.

I think, instead, I will just take Job's word for it. I still don't see why drops ever get to the ground, because if they start falling as soon as they are heavier than air, they would be too small not to evaporate on the way down, but if they wait to come down, what holds them up till they are big enough not to evaporate? Yes, I am sure there is a name for that too. But I am satisfied now that, by any name, this is a great and unsearchable thing that God has done. I think I should be thankful - lots more thankful than I am.

Gospel, Repentance and the Kingdom of God

Faith, salvation, gospel, repentance and the kingdom of God are words used throughout the New Testament. They all hold significant meaning within Christian history and those that followed Christ. Over time, these words and the meanings thereof have often been shaped by the culture they found themselves lodged in. Though this may not always serve to be a huge detraction from the original meaning intended, it nonetheless often subtracts from the overarching messages and implications that these words originally carried.

Each of these words mentioned above, have an original context. A context surrounded with real life realities, cultures, circumstances and images that were intimately united to the words themselves. Whenever there is a cultural and contextual gap from the one it was once delivered in, there are frequently missing components to the bigger picture - the meta-narrative in which they find themselves in.

The last several days we have been meandering about what "church is" and "what is the gospel". We have concluded that much of our current understanding is the byproduct of our cultural context and not necessarily that of biblical precedence. This doesn't in and of itself make our understandings anti-biblical, but it does warrant ongoing reflection and consideration.

When a Jew living in the First Century heard the word "gospel," what was their understanding? What about the word "repentance"? Was their initial mental image that of an altar at the front of a church? Was it even a religious (as we know it) image that moved to their frontal cortex? Or, was a First Century Jew's first image of "repentance" that of a political and revolutionary nature? Or, consider the "kingdom." I've never lived in a land where there was a king. Are the implications of this word greater than my King Arthur ideology?

Jesus was a real person. He lived in a real place. He was surrounded by very specific cultural influences. The time and culture in which He lived very much influenced what words, images and stories He choose to utilize while communicating. We must never forget this. Therefore, it would seem, that for us to gain a better - more complete understanding of the message(s) He communicated, most notably the "Gospel," it would serve us well to first ask ourselves:

• How did the first hearers of these stories understand and interpret them?
  
  
• What cultural and contextual elements is the author leaning on to communicate and why? And, so forth.

Yet, for most of us, it is a challenge to know which archives of historical data to peruse through to begin our search of a grander historical and cultural understanding of the First Century, thus the words that Jesus spoke. Last summer I facilitated a learning environment with about 25 people, where we tracked through about 150 years of history. Our primary focus of study was 50 years before Jesus was born to about 50 years into the history of the early church. We we're looking specifically for the historical, cultural, social, political and spiritual backdrops of the life and message of Jesus. In preparation for this learning environment I spent quite a bit of time rummaging, searching, researching, reading, reading, and some more reading.

Throughout the conversation I was often asked as we neared the end of our 16 week study, which books and resources would be helpful for continued study and understanding. It would have been ideal to have a piece of scholarly, thorough, and yet not-too-laborious to navigate through that would enable one to gain an accurate big picture perspective. I was hard pressed to find ONE. I gave out a list of recommends, but there was recently a book published by a friend of mine that, had it been in released last summer, would have definitely made it to the top of the recommended list.

The Book is Static: Tune Out The "Christian" Noise And Experience The Real Message Of Jesus by Ron Martoia.

Static takes a fresh look at such biblical terms as "salvation, kingdom, repentance and gospel." The books publisher, Tyndale House, summarizes the book by saying:

"Words communicate. Christians often use words to communicate to others; however, these words aren’t understood by many of those outside the church. We can be so absorbed in our 'christianese' that we don’t realize others don’t understand the jargon and cannot figure out what it is we mean by what we are saying. Static readers will become aware of what we are saying so we can re-focus our thinking to communicate clearly to those outside the church."

Tyndale House is right in what they say, however I think they don't say enough. It is a serious issue that we use "words" that individuals "outside the church" don't understand without our knowing. But I think there is another issue, if not even more serious than the former and that is that we often use "words" inside the church, that people inside the church don't understand, but because they've heard these words so often, they've become conditioned by familiarity to think they know the meaning, without fully understanding -- and without knowing that they don't know.

One of the greatest tragedies
of self-deception
is to not know something
and to not know that
you don't know it.

Ron Martoia in his book Static does an awesome job at trimming away unnecessary baggage, while presenting a clear and easily readable picture of the words, their original context, theological implications and how we can effectively communicate them in the world we find ourselves.

Additional Recommended Reading in this genre:

Historical & Political Climate

• Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Order by Richard A. Horsley
• Desire for the Everlasting Hills by Thomas Cahill
• Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelly
• The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era: Exploring the Background of Early Christianity by James S. Jeffers
  

Jewish Cultural Context of the First Century

• Sketches of Jewish Social Life by Alfred Edersheim
• As A Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg
• Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell
• Strange Scriptures that Perplex the Western Mind by Barbara Bowen
• The Bible Lives Today by Barbara Bowen*
• Through Bowen Museum with Bible in Hand by Barbara Bowen*
  *Barbara Bowen Books are hard to find
  

The Person & Message of Jesus

• The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is by N.T. Wright
• Jesus & the Victory of God; The Resurrection of the Son of God; and The New testament & the People of God by N.T. Wright - (These three are a BIT more academic in nature).
  
• The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others by Scot McKnight
• Turning to Jesus: The Sociology of Conversion in the Gospels by Scot McKnight
• The Secret Message of Jesus by Brain McLaren
• The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey
• God Came Near by Max Lucado
• Finding the Lost Cultural Keys to Luke 15 by Kenneth Bailey
• Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes by Kenneth Bailey
• The Cross & the Prodigal by Kenneth Bailey
  

Engaging the Scripture

• Eat this Book: a conversation in the art of spiritual reading by Euguene
• The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story
  by Craig G. Bartholomew & Michael W. Goheen
• God’s Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible by Vaughan Roberts
• The Art of Reading Scripture edited by Ellen F. Davis & Richard B. Hays
  

Strength or Strain

“For thus said the Lord God,
the Holy One of Israel:
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
(Isaiah 30:15)

In our Western world, we are often influenced to believe that to get more we must do more. To grow in strength and power we must exert more energy. Success is achieved by arriving early, working hard, staying late. Working as long as needed, no matter the cost. Though elements of this may be true in the world of commerce, it is not so in the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God operates on principles vastly different. To be strong, you must become weak. To become great, you must become small. To go up, you must bow down. Everything is seemingly backwards and upside down.

In the day of Isaiah the prophet, 8th Century BC, success and status was achieved by frantic, anxious military and political posturing. It is in this context that the word of the Lord comes. Rather than a reliance in one’s military, political or personal strengths, he say’s, let your complete reliance and trust be upon Yahweh. Isaiah is not a pacifist; rather, he believes that trust in Yahweh is the taproot of security. All trust in arguments and alliances, he reasons, is an act of mistrust and idolatry that will only lead to destruction.

“If you do not stand firm in faith, You shall not stand at all.”

(Isaiah 7:9)

Something happens when we intentionally pull away and pull into God in Solitude and Silence. Salvation (wholeness, freedom, healing, deliverance) is experienced in the midst of returning to the Source, and rest (intermission) in His Presence. Strength is released into our body, soul (mind/emotions/will), and spirit.

It will never happen unless we are intentional about making it happen. The writer of Hebrews even says that there is a rest that remains, but that it is not automatically experience and appropriated by followers of Christ. It is something that we must position ourselves in such a way to partake in it.

“Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.”
(Hebrews 4:11)

Runaway Bride 2-4-07

For hundreds of years Christians have used the parables of Luke 15, specifically the parable of "the Prodigal Son" to communicate the heart of God for humanity. Interestingly, for hundreds of years Muslims have used the same parables to refute the claims of Christianity. They've used these stories to argue that Jesus was nothing more than a good Muslim, and Christians have turned Him into a Christian. They argue that the boy is saved without a savior. The prodigal returns. The father forgives him. There is no cross, no suffering and no savior. And based on many of the commentaries written in the West concerning Luke 15, their arguements seem to be in fact accurate. But are they? Can the Cross be found in these age old parables that Jesus told? If so, where? Where is the Cross, the suffering, and the savior that is central to the Christian faith. This message walks through Luke 15, following the theme of redemption, restoration, suffering and the cross. This "familiar" text takes on fresh breath and new life as we look at some of the ancient Middle Eastern cultural cues that are seemlessly woven throught this amazing story. This is message five in the sermon series "Lost."

Scavenger Hunt 1-14-07

A fresh look at the parables/stories Jesus told in Luke 15. The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. This is the second message of the sermon series Lost done at Calvary Temple in South Bend, IN. This message is given by Pastor Jerrell Jobe.

Smokin' Hot

Smokin’ Hot
October 19, 2006







a. Tartarus - 2 Peter 2:4.



b. Hades - 4 times in the book of Revelation.
Revelation 1:18, 6:8, 20:13, 14
Acts 2:27/Psalm 16:8-11

Jesus uses the word 4 times.
1 & 2. Matthew 11:23/Luke 10:15
3. Matthew 16:18
4. Luke 16:19-31

c. Gehenna - “The Valley of Hinnom”

2 Kings 23:10/


Jesus uses this word 11 times.

1. Matthew 5:22
2-3. Matthew 5:29, 30 (2x)
4-5. Matthew 10:28/ Luke 12:5
6-9. Matthew 18:1-9/Mark 9:43, 45, 47
10-11. Matthew 23:15, 33 (2x)

James 3:6

Pastor Jerrell's Slides for Message "Wide Angle"